Irregular DVD Resolution Encoding NEED BIG HELP

[CPU1333MHZ]

Im having trouble encoding a couple movies. For example in Shanghai Noon, the actual resolution of the dvd (VOB FILES) is 852x480 according to Windows Media Player and other player progs and i beleive them because the image looks nice large and high quality. Well when i try to encode it using Xmpeg or DVD2AVI and other things it automatically assumes it must be 720x480 wide. Well that distorts the image but i can fix that by adjusting the aspect ratio. So i encode it and i get a final DivX file (with cropping for letterbox) at a resolution of 704x304. Terrible quality. It's not the codec but the fact that the image has shrunk a bit.

Basically what im asking about is that is there a program that does not set it's dvd res to 720x480 but the actual res of the file?

This problem is even WORSE with True Lies. The final movie turns out to be 636x272 from 720x540 widescreen...

I need help bad!!! If someone doesn't understand please ask and i will attach more jpegs

[benderman]

There are no DVDs with a width bigger than 720. WMP simply stretches the video to 862x480 to get the aspect ratio of 16:9. If you encode to divx you can also adjust the aspect ratio by enlarging the width and not reducing the hight. Then you will also get 862x480 (minus the black bars). The way to maximum quality would be that you encode the movie without adjusting the ar and keep the res at 720x480. Then you use player like BSplayer that can change the ar to 16:9 while playin the video.

[CPU1333MHZ]

hmm

What about 720x540?

[benderman]

Don't look for the resolution that WMP shows you. Look at the values that you find in the Ripper or Encoder. You will find the original resolution (for NTSC it's normaly 720x480) and the original aspect ratio (16:9 or 4:3). That is all you need. The rest is simple mathematics or a encoding-tool like GordianKnot.

If you really want to use real high resolutions you need a lot of space. A 90min-video with a res of 852x480 should not be smaller than 1.5GB+audio (video-bitrate 2000kbps or higher).